


To play at Kingsmen

by LindaMaceMichalik



Series: Light horse Dark horse [2]
Category: The Charioteer - Mary Renault
Genre: AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 23:27:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17476958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindaMaceMichalik/pseuds/LindaMaceMichalik
Summary: An alternative universe where Laurie Odell and Ralph Lanyon both happen to be visiting Kings', Cambridge the same weekend.  Being a small world and a compact college, they were bound to meet.--------October 1938, Kings' College Cambridge, just before start of Full Term.  5 years after Ralph is expelled and a year before Dunkirk.---------""  "You said no parties!"  Even to his own ears Laurie sounded petulant as he followed Charles back down the bile painted stairwells."No"  corrected Charles  "You said no queer parties!What I said was 'No - on Charles' honour.""And so we're not going to a private party?""Dear boy, more fool you for thinking I had any honour left to stand as surety!"   ""





	To play at Kingsmen

Photo by Jean Marc Gfp

 

Laurie slid into the dark stained oak pew in the back of the stall just beyond the altar side of the organ screen; the side with good clean walls, unmarked by the graffitti Henry the VIIIth had insisted on having carved into the walls on the other side of the screen as payment for finishing off the place. The heavy-duty lorry-rumble of the organ started to vibrate a low grumble in Laurie's stomach - he'd only just made it!

In Oxford he would have been attending Madgalen Chapel choral evensong as he did each Friday before heading back for formal hall in college. He had insisted that if they had to visit Charles' friends at Kings' this close to the start of Full Term then he, Charles would have to drive Laurie across in time for the Kings' choral service at 5:30 - and they'd made it, just!

Never mind he'd dumped Charles with signing in at Porters' Lodge and handling luggage and left him to find his own parking space out over the backs on Queens' Road. Laurie would go find out where their guest room on 'A' staircase was after the service.

He drew in a lungful of fenland air and let out a sigh that huffed a cloud into the twilight chill. Already the jewelled windows were darkening as the Crucifer and his candle-bearing Acolytes processed into the dimming chapel, leading the brilliant white ruffs and surplices of the Chapel Choir. Behind Laurie the engine noise swelled into a middle England introit as the organ broke into song.

Laurie leaned back against the wooden wall and pulled in the collar of his great coat. He was glad he'd brought it along with his college scarf and gloves - Cambridge had a well deserved reputation for filthy fogs and horizontal rainfall. Across the black and white tessellated tiled aisle he noticed another warmly clad young man sporting a thick dark grey merchant navy donkey jacket and seaman's cap pulled hard down over his fair hair, seemingly looking across at him. He reminded Laurie of someone - stood ram-rod straight, eyes glinting, reflecting the flickering candle light from the stall glass clad candelabras. All eyes went down as the chaplain gave out the order of the service.

Maybe the weekend would not be quite as tortuous as Laurie had dreaded.  
\-----

"What do you mean Grant expects you to bring a friend?"

"I would have thought that was perfectly obvious." Charles had responded.

"Look I came up before Full Term to catch up with my reading. Not to go trailing behind you to the Other Place for one of your little 'soirees'!"

"Do be a dear Laurie and pass me down the cups."  
Head bowed over the singing kettle, Charles twisted off the gas ring's tap and poured water into the large, warmed brown teapot.  
"How are those crumpets coming along?"

Laurie levered the fork off the metal guard on the gas fire and switched sides before jamming the fork tines back over the wire.  
He repeated the procedure with the other, slightly steamy/smoking crumpet.

"I am not a prize exhibit Charles!"

"Never said you were dear boy, just we need to keep our side up! Can't go off to a Cantab do without at least a couple of Oxon types to show willing!"

"Pass me the damned butter - so it's just a simple party - nothing too queer?"

"Scouts honour!"

"Were you?"

"Was I what?"

"Ever a scout?"

"No! ...Charles' honour then!"

Laurie studied the up-cast face and counted to ten. Then he shrugged, what the heck?  
"Alright, I'll come with - but on one condition..."

"Condition away dear heart, condition away!"  
\-----

Laurie blinked back from the cozy, gas warmed study.  
God and incense, candles and soaring boy sopranos all embraced by an icy, autumnal mausoleum of a chapel - what more could he ask of his England? Not to be lilly-livered in appeasement maybe, what a mess! No - he'd pray harder and be ready for the fall out when it all went up.

The man across the way seemed to be looking at him again; Jack from Coral Island, grown up, he thought; or maybe one of the adults in Swallows and Amazons? Just then the congregation started to sing so Laurie stopped thinking about boyhood heroes and scrambled at the Hymns Ancient and Modern to find the right page and catch up with the verse. Once he started to sing with gusto he soon forgot about boats and boyhood.

\----

"Odell!"  
Laurie stumbled out the Judas gate set in the main chapel doors and looked back over his shoulder. An irate, middle aged lady in sensible shoes and a thick tweed skirt strode into him so he had to move on, out of the doorway into the misty quad. The stone screen across the lawn loomed on either side of the decorated gateway that was porters' lodge. A black gloved hand came down on his shoulder.

"Didn't mean to startle you! It is Odell isn't it?"  
Laurie tried to remember if he'd met any of Charles' Cambridge friends, nautical get up not withstanding. If any had visited Oxford he didn't remember Charles having introduced them to him.

"It's Ralph, sorry, Lanyon to you!"

"Lanyon - oh my God! I thought you were familiar! But you didn't Come Up!" Laurie froze. " Oh my God, sorry - I didn't mean to be rude! Did you manage then? Did you come up to read Geography... wasn't it?"

The hard smile on Lanyon's face flickered  
"No... that didn't happen. I'm visiting an old friend I made when I came up for my interview, actually."

Embarrassed at having reminded Ralph of the circumstances of their last meeting, the day Lanyon had been sacked for conduct unbecoming of the head of school, Laurie looked away. Instead he examined the flying buttresses and etiolated Gothic window frames of the famous chapel. The stained glass windows dribbled out pigmented light that lit up the path they were standing on; from inside the opened door he could hear the organ playing out the straggling congregation who were forced to go single file out the narrow door into the evening that had turned into night. He shivered and tugged at his coat collar again.

"Look, I know my way around here - I visit on shore leave when I'm in at at Felixstowe fairly often. Why don't we get in out of the cold - Kings' JCR bar is just through those hefty doors in the middle of that gothique pile over there."  
Lanyon, no Ralph, gestured across the lawn studded with a silent fountain in the fashion of an oversized wedding cake.

"I guess we don't walk across the lawn?" Laurie asked.

Ralph shuddered.  
"Good God no! We walk along the Gibb's building here instead, which incidentally is a sight older than that carbuncle over there!"  
To Laurie's untutored eye, the classical building almost carved through the middle by a tall roman arch looked like it ought to be in Bath. Restoration period maybe?

"So it's all for show? The curtain wall without any buildings behind it and a Victorian pile pretending to be c14th to balance out the chapel?"

"Mostly." he agreed. "Though the chapel's legit - built for King Henry's 70 poor scholars!"

Ralph led the way in through the tall double doors, out through the other end of a corridor lined with college notice boards, empty at the start of a new academic year and turned sharp left through another, more humble door.

The smokey fug of the bar wrapped Laurie in a warm embrace. He pulled off his coat and scarf and sat at the table Ralph indicated as he went off to order a couple halves of Greene King - the local brew and not bad, had been Ralph's explanation for telling Laurie what he was getting to drink and had better like! Laurie looked around. He couldn't seen a single Fresher. Cambridge was on the same timetable as Oxford and they wouldn't be up till full term started next week. Charles had better get them back on time on Sunday!

"Ralph! There you are!"  
A fifty something Fellow in formal gown had caught hold of Lanyon at the bar.  
"Got to hurry lad - we'll be saying grace shortly!"

Ralph cast an apologetic grin across to Laurie.  
"Hold on Michael. Let me apologise to my friend."

"A Friend Ralph! Now I thought I was your Friend - for the weekend at least."

"Michael! Let me make my apologies and then we can be on our away. Alright?"

The gowned man gave in with ill grace and headed towards the door out to the Hall.  
"Hurry up then - formal hall waits for no seaman!" he called as he left the bar.

"Odell I've been an idiot and forgotten hall! Look will you be around for the weekend? We could meet for a cup of tea at the Copper Kettle - it's just across from the college. You can't miss it, just the other side of Kings' Parade. Say 10:30 tomorrow?"

Laurie nodded, bemused by the turn of events.  
"10:30 the Copper Kettle."

He guessed he had better go find his key and room.  
\------

The army green painted walls all seemed the same to him. He needed to go up three flights and turn right over the bar before crossing left... He decided to ignore the instructions and just look at the door numbers on the uniform doors. He was glad his rooms at Oriel didn't look so mean and plebeian.

The key on its oversized wooden fob proved to be unnecessary as Charles had left the door ajar and was in residence, lounging on one of the twin beds chewing on a sandwich, he gestured across to Laurie's bed to a wax paper wrapped parcel.  
"No idea what you wanted so I got you tongue! Was the service any good?"

Laurie pushed the door to and went over to the basin to wash his hands. The white painted wooden shutters weren't quite closed into the window and so he could see out over Kings' Parade to where a flat copper effigy of a kettle swung over a dark shop front. No, no problem in finding the Copper Kettle at all.

\-----  
"You said no parties!" Even to his own ears Laurie sounded petulant as he followed Charles back down the bile painted stairwells.

"No" corrected Charles "You said no queer parties!  
What I said was 'No - on Charles' honour."

"And so we're not going to a private party?"

"Dear boy, more fool you for thinking I had any honour left to stand as surety! No Laurie, don't look at me like that - it will be fun! Fitzwarren has booked the Chetwynd Room - he's in the Chet Society, Etonians only - so it will all be very beautiful and 'A' staircase where we're all staying is so very convenient for little tete-a-tetes! Here we are!" he said, firmly gripping Laurie's wrist.

They turned onto the ground floor and Charles guided Laurie towards a set of tall, white double doors.  
"We're here now, so do be a pet and just come in - no sulking!"

Laurie did not feel like sulking, he felt like lashing out at Charles and turning tail! But where could he go? He was sharing a room with Charles and he'd come in his car.

Had they really driven all this way to end up in a room that could have been one of any one of the Oxford college rooms that Charles' set played lounge lizards in? The high ceilings had that Restoration look, complete with royal-icing-perfect ceiling lamp roses and sculpted covings. A large pair of french windows occupied the middle of one of the long walls, draped with heavy curtains drawn against the cold; they probably opened onto a quad for Pimms in the summer. An ormolu framed mirror loomed large across a stone fireplace filled with burning logs. Side tables were covered with what must have been pristine heavy linen table cloths at the start of the evening. A small bar was being manned in one corner of the room surrounded by a murder of crones. Sofas and easy chairs were scattered across the room seating men, young and not so, that made Laurie draw in his breath. He held onto Charles tightly, feeling that the devil he knew had to be better than the owners of those shark like glances he'd seen as they'd walked in. Charles smiled, loosened Laurie's grip and took his elbow into his own.

"Cinzano please Ralph. And do go easy on the the rum for yourself tonight. Not good for your sea legs as well you know!"

Laurie turned to catch sight of the two men entering behind himself and Charles and looked full into the face of Ralph Lanyon as he entered, arm around the waist of his companion. The latter had discarded his college gown since supper, but not his proprietorial tone.

Ralph must have caught the headlight bedazzled rabbit look on Laurie's face, because he swept into the room, hooking his arm around Laurie, neatly scooping him off Charles' arm.

"Odell! We must stop bumping into each other like this! But now I have a second chance to make good on that drink I failed to get you earlier! Come along with me and let's see - what's your poison?"

Charles gave Ralph an assessing glance and raised one eyebrow at him.  
"Since you're off to the bar Laurie, get me a dry martini ---- please." he added as an after thought.

A querulous voice called after them.  
"Now really Ralph, you must introduce me to your beautiful friend!"

No, thought Laurie, it really did have the potential to get much worse. He glanced across at his rescuer and wondered where Ralph would be sleeping tonight and then like an idiot, let his mouth ask.  
"I guess you've not got a guest room on 'A' staircase tonight?" He asked Ralph.

"You guessed right." Ralph didn't seem to mind the damned fool question. "Michael has rooms on Bodleys, 'R' staircase, next to the river if you must know, more mock stonework pretending to be older than it has a right to claim. Good in the winter, full of idiot punters and lovelorn ducks at 2am in the summer."

"Oh!" said Laurie, wishing he hadn't asked.

"What are you doing here Spud" Ralph asked in a lowered voice as he leaned in to Laurie while they waited to be served.  
"And more importantly, do you want to stay?"

Laurie looked at Ralph's lined face and wondered if there really was only three years difference in their ages. Somehow this man seemed to be staring back at him over a far wider divide. He made a quick decision, such as Lanyon, head of his house would have approved.

"Don't know and don't want to stay."

"Then let me bring the drinks over while you slip away. I'll distract them, say you've gone to powder your nose or such like."

"Will you be alright?"

"Don't worry about me Spud, my boat sailed long ago.  
Still meet up at the Copper Kettle tomorrow, 10:30?"

"If I can. Charles is going to be in a foul temper with me and I travelled across in his motor.."

"Let's sort that out tomorrow, eh Spud? Come if you can. It matters to me."

Laurie slid out the side door as Ralph carried a Cinzano, dry martini and a rum back to their companions for the evening. Laurie thought he heard a slight whine as College Fellow recognised Ralph's drink.  
"Ralph, what did I say about your sea legs...?"

\-----------------  
"You are a coward and a little shit Laurie!" Charles moaned from the other side of the door.

Laurie lay under the covers feigning sleep whilst Charles staggered into their shared room at 2am having spent at least five minutes cursing and failing to find his key then get it into the lock. Laurie had considered leaving his key on his side of the lock to prevent Charles getting in but decided against that as a cowards way out.

"Nothing like your charming Friend Ralph of course! Now you really ought to take a lesson or two from him my dear. Most obliging, most obliging. When are you going to face up to what you are Odell and quit being such a Victorian Virgin. urgh I think I'm going to be .... " he stumbled across the room, getting to the sink in time. Retching and gasping noises came from across the basin and an acrid smell filled the air.

Oh damn thought Laurie, carrots in the sink and puke smells in the night.

He gave up and got out of bed to wash down Charles' face and got him to swill out his mouth before guiding him back to his bed He had no intention of undressing him and settled for taking his shoes off. He left a glass of water on his night-side cabinet and then went back to the sink to wash away Charles' part digested food and drink.

\------  
In the end he hadn't needed Ralph to tell him to let Charles drive off on his own. Laurie doubted he was sober enough to drive safely in any case, but a three hour journey sat beside Charles' glowering face in an icy silence seemed a bad idea to Laurie from the get go.

He sat in the Copper Kettle with his rucksack tucked under the table waiting for Ralph to turn up.

He'd gotten up early, before Charles awoke, grabbed his things and brushed his teeth in one of the communal college wash room. He had spent the early morning prowling the tiny town centre. At least Oxford was a city in its own right. No wonder Cambridge had more stories of Town and Gown coming to blows! Take the colleges out of Oxford and there were still factories and communities, take the colleges out of Cambridge and you had little more than dykes and fens!

That being said, it had felt good to stride out in the open, in charge of his own destiny. He had enjoyed poking around Trinity Street past the Senate House, wandering in and out of the colleges along the way - St Johns and then Trinity, two of the richest land owning institutions in the country after the Crown and the Church of England. He'd come back past the Round Church, down Sydney Sussex Street and then around the Market Place which had filled up since he'd first emerged from Porters' lodge having returned his keys and crossed over the cobbles to look at Great St Marys.

When Ralph got here he was going to have something for breakfast - he hadn't eaten properly since leaving Oxford yesterday morning!

"Laurie!" Ralph entered the cafe heading for his table, still sporting his donkey jacket, probably a merchant seaman's standard onshore coat.  
"This is good! I wasn't sure you'd come!"

"What and miss your ugly mug?"  
Laurie grinned and suddenly felt less of an idiot and well yes, less dirty.

"So he's cast you adrift?" Ralph said, gesturing at Laurie's bag.  
"More like I cast him over. I didn't give him a chance to say anything. For all I know he's still asleep in his own puke!"

Ralph tilted his head and bit his lip.  
"Let's order, I guess you've not had breakfast yet?"

Laurie smiled, comforted by Lanyon's dependable take command attitude and let him do so.  
"Yes, tea and tea cakes for starters for me please."

A waitress, who'd been eyeing up Ralph since his entrance, came across and took their order while Laurie looked over the doilies and porcelain cups and saucers, at the profusion of brightly polished brasses hanging off the mock Tudor brick and timber walls. His eyes returned to Ralph who was looking amused at his scrutiny of the facilities.

"What? This is a highly respectable and well known establishment!"

"Sorry. I'd have expected you to suggest some pub or other. I noticed The Bath around the back when I was on the prowl killing time."

"Have you been out that long then? Sorry dear. But I don't think I could have got away any earlier. Michael is a man of let's say, set habits."  
He grimaced a little and then looked back at Laurie.

"And now, how are we going to be useful to the Odell? "  
He seemed to already have made up his mind on the matter.  
"If you don't mind me saying so Laurie, you need to lose Charles double quick!"

"And if I do mind you saying? Would it matter?"

Ralph looked amused.  
"No cheek there Odell! But you're right, no I won't stand by and see your life wrecked by his sort."

"And you know about his sort ?"

"Honestly Laurie, have you lost the senses you had at school? I am his sort, which is why Uncle Ralph knows him well enough to tell you to ditch him."

Laurie sat back. They all treated him like some sort of innocent, a babe in woods. He'd read the Phaedrus Lanyon had given him that day Laurie had wanted to get the school to stand up for... for what? That one, perfect kiss had meant something honourable, he'd known that, and still did. He knew he wanted things to be better than they were, fairer maybe, but that didn't make him naive!

"And what if I wanted to be his sort too? I know what I am Ralph and I take responsibility for who and what I am, for what I do."

Ralph paused, his playful look turning into a considered stare.

"Really Spud? Do you really know what it is you want? "  
He looked around at the near empty cafe and leaned over to lay his palm against Laurie's shirt, over his chest.  
"It's a one way trip old boy and there's no redemption guaranteed."

Laurie grinned, covered Ralph's hand on his chest and also looked around before smiling into Ralph's face speaking to the hand -  
"Sorry dearie! Some other time!"

Ralph hissed and looked over his shoulder. Satisfied no one had a shocked look on their face he stared Laurie down.  
"This is no laughing matter Laurie! It is a criminal matter. It's living your whole life looking over your own shoulder. Having to be ashamed simply for being honest about who you are!"

"Don't I know it!" said Laurie before letting his head fall into his hands.

They were interrupted by the waitress returning with their order so Laurie looked away, out of the windows across the Parade to the curtain wall of Kings', trying to spot the window of the room he'd slept in the night before. It was a grisly day and he had a miserable set of train connections ahead of him before he would get back to Oxford. No point trying to stay on till Sunday now.

The waitress left and Ralph casually dropped a hand over Laurie's.  
"I'm just saying, if this is a phase, think about it. Think really hard and if you have to be damned, then be careful who you choose to burn with. Be very careful and as choosy as you can be!"

He lifted his hand and poured the tea. Funny. Laurie had never fagged for the Lanyon but friends had and they'd all thought it odd how the House Champion couldn't stand tea.

"Come on, eat and drink up Laurie! You've got a long walk to the station. Why they had to put it at the other end of bloody town from the colleges is beyond me! You know if I had my chance again, I think I'd have gone for Oxford."

He looked at Laurie with a perfectly sincere smile.  
"Especially if I'd known the calibre of undergraduates I might have met there. Come on - eat up Spud. If we get cracking I've got enough time to walk you up Hills Road to the station!"

FIN  
======

**Author's Note:**

> =====  
> Weird to think the chapel floor had not been lowered to accommodate the Reubens at the front end of the chapel when this story took place -  
> http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/archive-centre/college-archives/tour/religion/before-rubens.html
> 
> In case you'd like to see where Charles' dirty weekend didn't happen!  
> http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/visit/virtual-tour/index.html


End file.
